448 ON THE ACTION OF RUNNING WATERS. 



in regard to the modern changes of the configuration of the 

 globe; and, lastly, in regard to agriculture and civilisation ; 

 facts of easy observation, and which tend to prove, that 

 the action of rivers, whose fall is not sufficiently rapid 

 to entitle them to be considered as torrents, is not to 

 scoop out their bed, either in the valleys or in the plains 

 through which they flow, but rather to raise them, and 

 to tend, consequently, rather to level and flatten the 

 earth than to furrow it, more than it has been since the 

 Continents have assumed the configuration which they 

 now possess. 



But if we have not been able to recognise a real cor- 

 roding power in the great rivers falling in the form of 

 cascades or cataracts, let us inquire elsewhere, in circum- 

 stances where the water seems endowed with a still su- 

 perior power, what are the effects of this agent ? 



3. Action of Waves. 



IT is in the sea, an enormous mass, sometimes acquir- 

 ing, from the action of the winds, an incalculable power, 

 that we must find the maximum of force of the water of 

 the present times. In fact, in this case, the power of 

 transportation is so prodigious, that the strongest bar- 

 riers, both natural and artificial, are overturned, and the 

 largest stones, together with enormous fragments of rocks 

 torn from their place, transported, and even projected to 

 a distance. But it is to these effects that this immea- 

 surable power is limited. The water, which displaces 

 and transports to a distance these heavy masses, does 



